Major Allison Brager was born in Youngstown, Ohio and was her class valedictorian of Youngstown-Boardman High School. Brager direct commissioned into the Army in March 2017 to support sleep and human performance research & development portfolios as one of the few active duty neuroscientists. Prior to the Army, she was a research professor at Morehouse School of Medicine and Morehouse College — part of the historically black college & university system and where Martin Luther King, Jr was educated — in Atlanta, Georgia. In the Army, she has served as chief of the Sleep Research Center at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. She sits on fatigue management working groups for the Office of the Army Surgeon General, the United States government, and NATO.

Brager has a distinguished athletic career. In high school, she was one of the first female pole vaulters for the state of Ohio and the former state indoor record holder in the pole vault and a two-time All Ohioan at the state track and field tournament. At Brown University, she was a four year varsity letterman earning All-Ivy League honors. In Crossfit, Brager competed in the 2013 and 2015 Reebok Crossfit Games on a team out of Atlanta, Georgia and competed in Crossfit Regionals as an individual in 2012 and 2014. In 2018, she won 8 gold medals and 1 silver medal in track and field at the Gay Olympics held in Paris, France.

Her military awards include a Meritorious Service Medal and the Army Achievement Medal with one bronze oak leaf cluster.